All about the flavor of a small mountain city and the surrounding outback: neighborhood surprises ... wildflowers and nature ... the forest ... people and events ... plus occasional comments on science fiction, music, and the Great Wide World Beyond

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Summertime and the living....

See Max, all stretched out, in part to rest, in part to cool off? That's me, also. It's been hot for a week, with no respite except at night (the saving grace of high elevations, where the temps drop a good 30-40 degrees once the sun is well past the horizon.)

But some things don't mind the heat. In fact, almost everything in my potted garden is quite happy as long as the water keeps coming. I thought that pictures of my new old-fashioned bleeding heart might interest you while I go do the finishing touches to get the house ready for the arrival tomorrow of Sson, DIL, two grandchildren and, of course, the Guest Cat.

Speaking of which, there was a quite amazing cat scene this morning down the road a piece. Unseen, two cats were going at it, fang, nail and MROW!!! A ball of cat suddenly rolled down from a neighbor's garden and remained quite still for a couple of minutes, suddenly erupting into two MROWing, fighting cats. Next thing you know, one blue jay shows up, starts shouting at the cats and then his entire local tribe arrives, also shouting. At which point, the cats got the hint and moved their battle elsewhere.

anon av-- Max has made himself scarce all evening since the arrival of 1) strange vehicle, 2) large numbers of people,3)loud kids and 4) strange cat. The Yoda cat arrived totally pissed off & spent the first couple of hours hissing at anybody & everybody.

dc -- I don't recall the temps ever dropping that much in rural parts of Phoenix in the old days. Cooler at night, yes, but it never chilled out. I do recall the temperature differentials that happened whenever you passed by an irrigated field of cotton or alfalfa.